


save your energy (you'll need it in your childbearing years)

by etben



Category: due South
Genre: Genderfuck, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:52:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/pseuds/etben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Ray Kowalski turns into a woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	save your energy (you'll need it in your childbearing years)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, gosh. Um. If you don't like genderfuck, this is not the story for you. If you don't like threesomes (or if you specifically dislike F/V/K), this is not the story for you, either. And if you like genderfuck and threesomes, but not together...man, I just don't know what to say to you. Some people are so _picky_.

So Ray Kowalski turns into a woman, and immediately four distinct (but not unrelated) things happen:

1) Ray stops shouting about "stupid fucking _witches_, Jesus, don't you people have anything better to do," turns an alarming shade of off-white, and crosses his arms across his chest;

2) Ray Vecchio, his partner in work and other things, grabs him by one arm and hauls him into the supply closet. From the hallway, the sounds of agitated conversation can be heard, but not understood;

3 The woman in the purple robes and the orange hat tucks her pointy stick back in her purse and ducks down the hallway, followed by one Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police;

4) Harding Welsh wishes he hadn't decided to stick it out at the precinct for another year.

And that's just the beginning, unfortunately.

**

Ray gets the afternoon off, on account of how he's suddenly a woman, and so does Vecchio, on account of how his partner is suddenly a woman. Fraser's not technically employed at the 2-7, which means there's nobody to tell him what to do, but nobody complains when he gets in the car with Ray and Vecchio. They head back to the apartment, where Ray promptly storms off into the bathroom and slams the door behind him. Her. Whatever. He doesn't really have a plan, but he figures he can hide out until Fraser fixes it, or at least until Vecchio caves and brings him coffee.

The thing is, he forgot about mirrors, and how bathrooms _have_ them. He thinks about it, but then decides not to look. He sits down on the toilet, stares at the towel bar, hates his life.

Two minutes later, he's standing up again, staring himself down above the sink, because his outsides may have changed, but his insides haven't, and he is not afraid of his fucking reflection.

So, okay. He is, for reasons that do not need to be explored at this or any other fucking juncture, a woman. With tits—_nice_ tits, actually, which is just beyond weird. They're medium-sized, round and smooth and—and they're _breasts_, and he's still a guy inside, so of course he thinks that's hot. He pokes one, experimentally, but has to look away when it bounces, because that's still too weird.

Breasts, check. He tugs his shorts away from his stomach and looks down, and the hair is the same but the rest of it is very much _not,_ and he lets the waistband snap back. It's not fear, not really—he's just working his way up to the big deal. You don't start out climbing mountains, after all. Or, well, he and Fraser did, but even Ray knows you're not _supposed_ to.

There are other new and interesting things to look at, anyway. His face is thinner, somehow, and less pointy, and his neck seems longer. His eyebrows do something different at the edges, and his shoulders are maybe a little narrower. He's got hips, too, and an actual waist; they make his jeans fit funny. He runs his hands down his sides, learning this new shape, then lets them fall, feeling awkward.

That's what's different. The more he looks, though, the more he sees things that are the same. His hair hasn't changed, for whatever reason; it's still short, spiky, and blonder than God made it. It fits his face differently, now, but it works—makes him look like a tough chick, a dangerous lady. He tugs the sleeve of the t-shirt up, and the tattoo's there, too, although the muscles underneath it have changed, and the skin itself is smoother and paler.

His eyes are the same, and when he grins at himself in the mirror, that's the same, and, yeah, okay. Not what he'd been planning to do with his day, but it's cool—he's cool.

When he comes back out of the bathroom, they're staring at him. Fraser, at least, looks away as soon as Ray looks at him, but Vecchio just keeps staring, going kind of bug-eyed. There's a moment of silence, and then a moment where they all try to talk at once, and then a little more silence. Ray is the one to break it, same as always.

"Fraser," he says, and his voice has changed, too—hadn't noticed that, when he'd been shouting. "Frase, tell me you can fix this."

"Yes, Ray," Fraser says, and those are easily Ray's favorite words in the entire English language. "I've managed to track down the woman who—" he hesitates, rubbing a thumb along his eyebrow, and makes a little embarrassed noise "—well, I suppose that 'cursed' is the most appropriate word, under the circumstances. She said that—"

"Skip it, Fraser," Ray says. "You can fix it, that's enough." Because, in all honesty, he doesn't care about _how_ or _why_ this happened—all he wants is to make it un-happen as soon as possible.

"Understood, Ray," Fraser says, and takes a sip of his tea.

Ray turns to Vecchio and stares at him until he gets eye contact instead of eye-to-breast contact, then raises one eyebrow. "Vecchio," he says, "you planning on starting dinner any time soon? Because I may be a chick, but that does not mean I'm going to start doing all of the cooking around here."

"Aww, fuck you, Kowalski," Vecchio says, smiling and standing up. "Like I'd let you cook anyways."

Over dinner, Ray agrees to hear more of what Fraser's found out, which is basically this: Muriel Stroop, Witch, comes in to the 2-7 answer some questions about one of her neighbors, and winds up with a confrontation with Frannie, of all people.

"Something about Francesca's _aura_, I believe," Fraser says, and Ray grins, because, yeah, that's Frannie, all right. He loves her, sure, but she gets in a snit over the dumbest stuff.

Across the table, Vecchio glares at him. "Hey, watch it, " he says, "that's my sister you're talking about, there." His foot is sliding up Ray's leg, though, so it's hard to take him too seriously. Instead, Ray leans forward, pressing his arms to his sides, and hooks his foot around Vecchio's ankle. Vecchio doesn't show much, but he blinks twice and licks his lips. Next to him, Fraser stops talking, staring at Ray's chest and turning red, looking like maybe he's forgotten how to form complete sentences.

It's okay, though, because Ray knows the rest of this story, being as he was there to see it happen. Frannie and the witch got in a fight, all slapping and hair-pulling, and Ray got in the middle of it, trying to keep them from destroying the 2-7. The witch lunged for Frannie, Ray tried to hold her back—

"—and received the curse intended for Francesca, I'm afraid," Fraser finishes. "It's actually quite interesting, Ray. It changes the form and perception of the recipient, but without any deeper genetic changes—"

"Fraser," Vecchio says, putting a hand on his shoulder, his feet still rubbing against Ray's, "can't you think of better things to do than _talk_ about this?"

"Ah," says Fraser, and then he smiles.

They fuck that night, slow and careful. Vecchio goes down on him for what seems like hours, bringing him off again and again and _again_, while Fraser's hands slide over every inch of new skin, lighting up nerve endings, shining and electric. Then, when Ray seriously cannot take it any more, when he feels like he's going to shake apart or shoot off into orbit, Vecchio kneels behind him and helps him slide down onto Fraser's cock.

It's weird, deeply weird—Ray's been fucked before, and he's fucked women before, but somehow neither of those things is enough to prepare him for what it feels like, getting fucked like this. It's all different, less greedy and more patient, the pleasure echoing up from parts of him that he never expected to have. Fraser's holding him by the hips and fucking him slowly, steadily, gasping Ray's name with every other breath. Vecchio's got his hands on Ray's breasts and his mouth on the side of Ray's neck and _fuck_, yeah, this girl stuff isn't so bad. Different, sure, but if Ray ever had a problem with different, he never would have agreed to go undercover as an Italian cop with a Canadian partner, and then where would he be?

Afterwards, they fall asleep in a tangled heap, Ray in the middle, all of them smiling.

The next morning, though, it all goes to shit.

Because Ray gets up, and that's pretty much the same as usual. His center of gravity is lower, and it throws off his balance a little, but he can't ever balance for shit, first thing in the morning, so he doesn't mind. He has his coffee, and the chocolate tastes maybe even better than usual, which is just awesome. He takes a shower, which, wow: that's all _kinds_ of fun, in some new and knee-trembling ways.

His clothes still fit, mostly; the shirts are a little tight, but that just shows off his rack, and his pants are usually kind of loose anyway.

When he goes for the shoulder holster, though, and can't manage to buckle it—that's when it hits him, hits him like a brick to the face. He's a _chick_, now. As much as he feels normal, he _isn't_, and that means bigger changes than just being able to fry Fraser's brain by showing a bit of leg.

He can't go to work like this, not really—the 2-7 might be a safe zone, seeing as they all saw it happen in the first place, but nobody else would believe him. And if anyone talked—which they would, of _course_ they would—then everyone would know, all in a rush, and he'd wind up being scanned and tested and dissected in some hospital somewhere.

"Ray," Fraser says, coming up behind him, tall and broad and _fuck_, that only makes it worse, that reminder of how not-him he is today. "Ray, it's a temporary state of affairs, I assure you. You'll be back to normal within the month."

Ray wants to argue, but it's not as though any of this is Fraser's fault. Yelling at him isn't going to fix anything. "Yeah, fine," Ray says, leaning back, letting Fraser support his weight, trying to ignore how shaky it makes him feel to be _small_ and _delicate_.

"Sorry, Kowalski," Vecchio says, coming up just to Ray's right and pressing a kiss to the side of Ray's head. "Guess you'll just have to stay here, and let me and Benny deal with Mowrey."

Which is just all kinds of unfair—Mowrey's involved in this arms smuggling deal they've been tracking, not a big player but important, the guy with all the answers, and he's been playing hard-to-get. They've been trying to get in to talk with him for _weeks_, and Ray just knows that they can break him, once they get a face-to-face. They've got a system, see: Fraser is overwhelmingly friendly, Vecchio is all narrow-eyed calculation, and Ray—well, Ray's a loose cannon, so dangerous that he needs Canada's friendliness and Vegas' iron control just to keep him from doing anything unadvisable.

Between the three of them, they can take anyone, break anyone.

Without Ray in there this afternoon, they're screwed, really, and that is in no way his ego talking. Mowrey's a cocky bastard; he doesn't want Fraser's smiles and he's too confident to be rattled by Vecchio's thousand-yard stare. They _need_ Ray to be there, to be the catalyst, to shake things up and pull Mowrey loose.

"Fuck," he says, "Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!" And Vecchio just kisses him again, because Vecchio's like that, and Ray's maybe two seconds from just shouting at _him_, just to get it out, when all of a sudden it hits him.

Ray looks at himself in the mirror. Not bad, really. Doesn't look like much right now, but he's wearing his boxers and a ratty t-shirt. With the right setup—

"Vecchio," he says, "you need to go get me some girl stuff."

Yeah, this is going to be all right.

**

Ray Vecchio goes out and buys women's clothing for Kowalski, because, as much as he hates to admit it, Kowalski's got a good plan.

A guy like Mowrey—a scumsucking lowlife, which Ray has met more than a few of—has one big weakness. He's smart and he's careful and he's got some serious connections, but he listens too much to what his body tells him, and he gives it what it wants. He'll break if Kowalski threatens him, because his body will be screaming _pain pain pain_ at him, even if the pain isn't there yet, because Kowalski is a scary fucker, when he tries. That was the original plan, the plan they've used over and over again: good-cop, bad-cop, except that for them, it's more like nice-Mountie, crazy-cop, doesn't-give-a-fuck-cop, and it works like a charm nine and a half times out of ten.

But if they can't have Kowalski the Homicidal Maniac, which today they can't, Kowalski the Hot Chick is a pretty good second choice. Ray's pretty sure the CPD wouldn't approve of using a woman as scumsucking-lowlife bait, which makes it just as well that Ray's never planning to speak of this again.

Ideally, of course, they'd send Fraser out to do this, given that he's the only one of them who's ever actually worn women's clothing, but Fraser would come back with long skirts and high-necked blouses and probably also a wig, which is not the look they're going for. Librarian-chic has its place, but that place is not here.

Kowalski could go, seeing as it's his body, but that'd be an even worse idea. Kowalski's more or less the poster child for Attention Deficit Disorder: they send him to the store for milk and eggs and he comes back with three zucchini and a mango. Ray doesn't even want to think about how that would translate to women's clothing.

So it's all up to Ray, which isn't so bad. He's not crazy, and he used to live with Frannie, so he knows the look they're going for. He finishes his coffee and leaves Fraser and Kowalski sitting on the couch, arguing.

When he gets back, an hour later, they're still sitting on the couch, but Fraser's hair is a mess and he's got red marks all down the side of his neck. Kowalski looks pretty much the same until he gets up and comes around the couch to look at the stuff Ray's got, which is when Ray sees that he's not actually wearing pants any more, just a too-long t-shirt and a smirk.

"Jesus, you two, on the _couch_?" Kowalski flushes a little, but Fraser just shrugs.

"Well, Ray, it seemed wasteful to dirty another set of sheets when we were already sitting out here," he says, like of course it makes sense for the two of them to fuck on the couch while Ray's out buying women's clothing for the boyfriend who's currently his _girl_friend.

Well, what the hell. It's not like it's weirder than the rest of the week has been.

Kowalski gets bored with rooting through the bag and drags the whole thing over to the table, pushing plates and bowls aside and dumping the whole thing out. Ray doesn't look—he knows what's in there, after all. Two skirts, one short and one very short; two shirts that could have come from Frannie's closet. Kowalski whistles—that's the boots, tall and black and—

"Ray," Fraser says, frowning,

—yeah, maybe more expensive than Ray should really be spending on a temporary situation. "They fit the part, Benny," he says, and he can tell that Fraser doesn't believe him, but he can also tell that Fraser is imagining Kowalski in those boots, because his eyes are hot and dark, and he lets out a very small sigh.

"Well, at least they'll be easier to walk in than high heels," Fraser says, and then, "Oh, _Ray_."

Ray turns around, and, sure enough, Kowalski is holding up the bra and panties, both of them black lace and very skimpy. He's staring at them, and he's staring at Ray, and he doesn't look happy with anything he's seeing.

"You got a problem, Kowalski?" Ray says, raising one eyebrow, cool as anything.

"Yeah, Vecchio, I've got a problem." When Kowalski waves his arms around like that, it does some really interesting things to his breasts, and Ray _would_ stop staring, but Fraser's staring too, so it's not like he's the only one at fault, here. Kowalski doesn't even notice, anyway, just keeps talking: "My problem is that you seem to have forgotten that I am _not a chick_."

"Inside, sure," Ray says, shrugging, "but your outsides still need some support, Kowalski. Anyway, it fits the part," he adds, because if it worked on Fraser maybe it will work on Kowalski, too. Kowalski just glares at him, though, so Ray changes tactics.

"What, Kowalski," he says, "are you scared of the panties?" Because some things are different, sure, but plenty of things are the same, and Ray can always get Kowalski to do something by daring him. It's a useful skill, and one that Ray tries to exploit as often as Fraser will let him.

"Fuck you, Vecchio," Kowalski snaps, and Ray knows that he has him; just a little more fuel on the fire, now.

"Aww, come on, Kowalski," he says, tilting his head just so, smiling through his teeth, "You not enough of a man to wear women's underwear?"

And, yeah, that's it: Kowalski flushes red and hauls his shirt off over his head, shrugging his way into the bra and hooking it shut with only a little scrabbling. It fits pretty well, which makes sense: Ray was paying attention last night, after all. Kowalski frowns a little, fussing with the straps and then—dear mother of God—reaches underneath to settle things into place. It's nothing Ray hasn't seen before, but somehow it's like nothing Ray's ever seen before.

If he weren't already going to hell for living in sin with two other men, Ray's pretty sure that this would push him over the edge and into eternal damnation.

The underwear are next, and then Kowalski pulls on the shorter of the two skirts, smoothing his hands down over his hips and making Fraser swallow loudly. A shirt—the dark green one, which fits just as well in reality as it did in Ray's imagination—and then Kowalski eyes the boots for a minute before shaking his head and padding over to the mirror to check himself out.

"Hey, Vecchio," he says, "You ever consider a career in women's fashion?"

"Fuck you, Kowalski," Ray says, but it's weak and they all know it.

It'll be okay, though. How bad can it possibly be?

**

It's a very long day. Productive—and that is a good thing, of course—but also incredibly long.

Benton hadn't been at all sure about the plan, or about Ray's implementation, but the results have spoken for themselves. Lester Mowrey proved extremely talkative over the course of their visit, and they obtained all the information necessary to "take those fuckers _down_, Fraser," as Ray insists on putting it.

The incident at the end of the interview will almost certainly be amusing in a few weeks, but at this moment, the image of Mowrey's hands on Ray's breasts, temporary though they may be, is enough to make him grit his teeth with helpless and unwelcome rage. And even once both Rays had been convinced that Mowrey was more valuable to the department with his hands still attached to his arms, there'd been the afternoon to confront.

Considering the circumstances, Ray couldn't come into the station under his own name. He did need to be present at the investigation, in order to give a statement and deal with new evidence from a handful of pre-existing cases. Fortunately, they had come up with a very elegant solution to the dilemma, and a phone call to Lieutenant Welsh had obtained assisting liaison status to one Rae Kowalski.

Unfortunately, Ray takes his change in status as an excuse to be supremely unhelpful all afternoon.

"Nah, Vecchio," he says, leaning back on two legs of his chair and exposing a tremendously distracting amount of bare skin, "I can't fill that out for you—that's official police business, and I'm just an observer." He gestures at his nametag, and then grins when Ray's eyes stray—quite understandably, in Benton's opinion—to his breasts. "Besides, my handwriting's all wonky," Ray adds, stretching forward to scribble on one corner of the report.

Ray Vecchio looks down at the form, then blushes and crumples it up, but Benton recovers it when his Rays go in search of coffee. _Fuck me_, it reads, and of course Ray is entirely correct—the differences are subtle, but there is every indication that Ray's handwriting as a woman has been significantly altered from his normal scrawl. Not that there is any reason to anticipate a handwriting analysis, of course, but it's best to be careful—

Ray sees him fold the paper and tuck it in his pocket, and his resulting grin proves more than a little distracting.

And the pattern continues all afternoon: they discuss the case for a few moments, and then Ray leans forward or crosses his legs and all progress has to stop until Ray Vecchio can shake off the inevitable effect of the clothes he'd purchased that morning. Fortunately, the rest of the 27th seems more than willing to ignore them—and Benton is a very competent touch-typist.

Ray, predictably, demands pizza as his recompense for a hard day's non-work—"I've been wearing a skirt all day, Fraser, you don't think I deserve some pizza?"—and not even the story of Benton's own experience with female dress is enough to convince him that the skirt isn't the most horrible piece of clothing on the planet.

"It's not the same, Frase," he says, leaning forward in the dim light of the backseat. "I mean, you were still a guy, so it's not like you _needed_ to be wearing it, and anyways it was for a case. And also, you're unhinged," he adds, as though that settles the matter.

"What, Kowalski, and you're not?" Ray glances back at them from the front seat and meet Ray's glare with a grin. "Come on, Benny, give the guy in women's panties a break."

And so pizza it is. For once, Diefenbaker doesn't try to steal any of it—apparently, confusion over Ray's new form and scent are more powerful deterrents than any health concern. Afterwards, when they've finished, Benton takes the plates into the kitchen and begins to wash them, along with the breakfast dishes and the pots and pans from the night before.

Ray and Ray remain on the couch, discussing the day in their own impossible manner, a rapid-fire flow of insults and jokes that manages to encode an astonishing amount of actual information.

"What, you think Voight will talk? Fat chance, Kowalski," Ray says, and the sound of his smile is unmistakable.

"Oh, he'll talk," Ray retorts. "He'll be so overcome by my womanly charms that he won't be able to _help_ himself." Not something Ray's ever said before, but the tone and the sentiment are entirely familiar. Benton smiles into the sink, reminded once again of how happy he is, how much he loves these men, noise and all.

When the noise stops, it doesn't worry him. Ray and Ray mix business and pleasure easily, without a second thought; they trade kisses as easily as they trade case files and laundry duty. This pause is longer than usual, though, and Benton sets the last of the pans down and moves back to the living room.

They've moved slightly closer together, but they're not kissing. Ray Vecchio's arm has slid off of the back of the couch to curl around Ray's waist. Ray Kowalski's head is tipped back against the back of the couch, and his breathing seems somewhat irregular; his other Ray is watching him, smiling slightly.

Benton steps forward again, around the side of the couch, and—

"Oh, _Ray_." Neither of them look up at his words, but that's understandable. Ray Vecchio is focused on the task at hand, on moving his fingers just _so_ over familiar-unfamiliar skin, on making Ray arch his back and gasp out obscenities. He's got one hand spread out across Ray's stomach, pushing the shirt up, the backs of his fingers just barely brushing the lower curve of Ray's breasts. His other hand is high on Ray's thigh, and his fingers are moving back and forth along the edge of the panties, there in the crease of Ray's thigh, where the black lace is stark against pale-new skin.

Ray Kowalski seems to be focusing primarily on breathing. Benton can't blame him.

As he watches, Ray slides down on the couch, pressing himself against Ray's fingers.

"You like that, Kowalski?" Ray asks, all calm curiosity. Ray swears at him, of course, as he is prone to do, but Ray only smiles, pressing his fingers against black lace and inducing another involuntary motion.

"Fuck, Vecchio, please," Ray says, moving his hips again and then again, nearly lifting himself off the couch. The skirt moves up farther, then flips down over Ray's hand, blocking Benton's view entirely.

"Benny, would you give him a hand with his skirt?" The question is entirely innocent, if uncommon; the motion of Ray's wrist is anything but. Benton swallows, then obliges, setting his hand on Ray's left thigh and sliding up until the skirt is held well out of the way. Ray's fingers are under the lace, now, pressing up and _in_ in a motion that is both unfamiliar and unmistakable.

"Fuck, _please_," Ray says again, his voice hoarse and desperate; Benton leans forward and kisses him, still holding the skirt out of the way. The kiss is sloppy and uncoordinated, which makes sense: Ray's attention is quite clearly elsewhere. Still, when they pull apart, Ray smiles at him, and lifts a shaking hand to Benton's face. "Yeah," he says, staring at Benton, "yeah, come on, just, please, _¬fuck_—" His eyes slide shut and his words dissolve into moans; his hips are moving steadily, now, independent of thought or volition.

From the corner of his eye, Benton can see Ray drawing back, moving away; he kisses Ray's gasp out of his mouth and then turns to see what Ray is—oh. _Oh_.

Ray's fingers are sticky and glistening, and he's licking them, sucking at his knuckles and his fingertips. He grins at them, and holds out his fingers, swiping them once along Benton's lips before going to his knees in front of the couch.

As Ray's moans pick up again, Benton licks his lips, tasting Ray-but-not-Ray, this bizarre amalgam of the well-known and the unknown. It's completely unfamiliar, of course, and yet somehow it still tastes like Ray. He considers getting a second sample, to try and tease out the distinctions, but Ray is occupied, and Benton would never interrupt such dedication. Instead, he watches, observing how they move together, how _this_ action has _that_ consequence, how careful application of tongue and fingers make Ray shudder and moan, falling back on the couch in a boneless heap.

Ray, for his part, has managed to undo his pants; he brings himself off with short, sharp strokes, his cheek resting against Ray's leg, taking deep breaths. Benton can smell what he must be smelling—sweat and sex and Ray, Ray, always Ray.

Of course it must be stronger from Ray's perspective. Benton considers asking to trade places, but Ray is already too close. Instead, Benton hands him a handkerchief, and gets a sleepy, sated grin for his efforts.

"Fuck, Vecchio," Ray says, "watch the teeth next time, okay?" There's a bruise on his thigh, just where Ray's mouth was, dark red already shading into purple.

"Whatever, Kowalski," Ray replies, standing up only to fall onto the couch on Benton's left, leaning against his shoulder, "it's not like you're going to be stripping for cash, are you?"

"Now, Ray, I don't think—" Benton begins, but he loses his train of thought as they both turn to look at him, predatory in the extreme. "Ray," he tries again, meaning one or both of them, but it's no use: before he can say more, his pants are decorating the lamp and he's got a mouth on his cock, a mouth on his neck, hands on every other inch of his skin.

"Don't worry, Frase," Ray whispers, moving one of Benton's hands to his breasts, and Benton gives up, gives in, lets go.

Everything will be just fine.

**

When Ray Kowalski turns back into a man, four things happen:

1) Ray pats himself down, quickly and thoroughly, and then gives a whoop of delight which devolves rather quickly into an impromptu dance party;

2) Benton Fraser, his liaison in several different senses of the word, frowns slightly. "Ray," he says, "you really ought to consider changing into something less—revealing." He swallows twice, cracks his neck once, and is generally ignored by everybody involved;

3) Raymond Vecchio, Detective First Class, Chicago Police Department, mutters something about, "supposed to be _tomorrow,_ damn it," but cuts himself off when the conga line comes his way;

4) Harding Welsh sighs. If this is normal…but no. It's fine.

And that—more or less—is the end of it.


End file.
